


roses (a reprise)

by anthropologicalhands



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Parallels, Parallels are Cool, post-4x11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 08:44:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17619185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropologicalhands/pseuds/anthropologicalhands
Summary: post 4x11. Rebecca applies her penchant for color coding when she reciprocates a certain gesture.





	roses (a reprise)

Rebecca’s good intentions were called into question the moment she raised her hand before apartment number thirty-seven, poised to knock, only for the door to be pulled open and Nathaniel almost walked right into her fist.

“Whoa! Rebecca?”

In an effort to avoid accidentally punching him in the throat, Rebecca stumbled backwards, her surprise nearly dropping her right on her ass. Luckily, gravity was on her side for once, and she was able to recover, albeit awkwardly.

“Hey, Nathaniel!” she wheezed, still catching her breath, glancing down to inspect the flowers in her arms for crushed petals or other damage.

“Hey.” Nathaniel was still hanging halfway out of his doorway, one long arm flung back to catch himself in the doorframe to avoid collision. He blinked down at her as he righted himself, apparently utterly perplexed by her presence in his hallway.

There was something so strange about seeing him standing directly in the frame, filling the space completely, like his body was a physical manifestation of the boundaries he had been drawing steadily between them these last several weeks.

And that was good news, really. He said that he was going to let her go, and his actions since then were consistently reflecting that intent.

That was good. That was healthy.

So, naturally, it was up to her to toe the line by appearing on his doorstep unannounced, even if it was in the name of friendship.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Here to see you, obviously. Do you need to be somewhere?” She looked him over; his attire was perfectly casual—nothing like what he would wear for an appointment, or possibly a date—not that he would go for a date, what with the events of the day—but she hated how even when she was happy with someone else, even when she didn’t want him the way she had before, there was still a little knot of lead that formed, unwanted, in the pit of her stomach at the thought of him with someone else; its continued presence felt deeply unfair, especially considering her good intentions.

“Not anywhere urgent. Darryl invited me out for drinks tonight after, well, everything.” He hesitated, glancing sidelong at her. “Did you, uh…”

“Yeah,” she admitted, with a sheepish shrug. “Paula gave me the details, but I put most of it together when you walked out of the building in the middle of the day and your dad being, um, passive-aggressive by skipping the ‘passive’ part entirely.”

Nathaniel’s eyes shuttered closed, and he let loose an embarrassed huff. “Heard all of that, huh?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

He sighed, giving a small, tight smile. “I didn’t expect him to react like that in public. All of those lectures about control just out the window, and he throws a tantrum for not getting his way. Good to know I came by it honestly.”

“Something like that,” agreed Rebecca uncomfortably, wincing at the bitterness in his tone. She shifted, the brown paper wrapping of the bouquet crinkling in her arms. “Paula’s kept me posted. But seriously, how are _you_ doing?”

He had looked peaky back in the lobby, the glimpse she’d managed to catch from her hiding place, tucked just out of view behind the counter, eavesdropping on Plimpton Sr’s nearly incoherent outrage and Nathaniel’s final dismissal. But now when he raised his eyes to meet hers, his gaze was calm and steady.

“I’m okay,” he said, sounding almost surprised, to find that this was the case. He gave a small, certain nod. “Or I will be, in time. I don’t have anything more than that.”

He didn’t elaborate and he didn’t need to; she knew that particular feeling intimately enough.

“That’s good,” she said instead. “What are you going to do next?”

“I have some other prospects lined up, but I don’t know. Nothing concrete.” He pauses. “Maybe it’s better that way, at least for right now.”

“Sometimes you need to exist in the inbetween,” agreed Rebecca, her mouth quirking up in memory of how strange and aimless that state could be, but also how _light_. “I’m happy for you.”

He smiled at her, though it was more polite than warm. Then his gaze drifted down, to the bundle against her chest. At his unspoken question, she held them out with both hands.

At his surprised look she continued, a little hastily, “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. This is a gesture like the gesture you made after I got home from the hospital. Only I did some research and looked up the different kinds of rose symbolism –you know my feelings about color coding—and while yellow roses had alternate meanings in the past, including some with surprisingly negative connotations, I want you to know that, these days, a present of yellow roses is widely recognized as a symbol of friendship. Platonic friendship. These are platonic roses.”

“I’m familiar with the terminology,” said Nathaniel dryly, accepting the bouquet, grasping the bouquet closer to the blooms, so that their fingers wouldn’t brush. “They look good. Thank you.”

“Yeah. I mean, granted, the store did actually have an arrangement that symbolized ‘Congratulations for kicking your dad out of your life’, too, but the price point was obscene, especially taking my meager pretzel salary into account, so you can send that one to yourself.”

That startled a laugh out of him, warm and unexpected and washing over her like rainwater. She continued, “But seriously…Nathaniel, I want you to know that I still consider us friends. I still want us to be friends. Real friends, not just exes, not just awkward friends-of-friends who make small talk at parties. We need boundaries and realistic expectations. I understand that and I appreciate what you’ve been doing on your end. But just…don’t be a stranger. I think we still have a lot to give each other.”

Nathaniel didn’t say anything, running his fingers over the warm, buttery-soft petals.

“I agree,” he admitted, breaking the stretch of silence just as it was starting to become unbearable. “I want that for us, too.”

The tightness in her chest loosened, almost making her sag in relief.

“Good. Letting go shouldn’t mean that we should never speak again. I mean, who else can share their daddy issues without it getting weird?”

That provoked another laugh from Nathaniel, and he shot her a look of amused disgust.

“…I guess. But please don’t word it like that again. Seriously.”

 She shrugged, grinning and unrepentant. They looked at each other for a moment, the ease of it strangely, beautifully calm.

“These need water,” he said, clearing his throat and averting his eyes, torn between the common courtesy of inviting her in and the unquestionable fact of their sordid history. Frankly, she agreed. Some boundaries should be left intact until they were more assured of where they stood.

“Go ahead—I need to meet with Paula to help her study for the bar,” she said, neatly sidestepping that particular minefield in its entirety. “But I’m here for you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. And Rebecca?”

“Hm?”

When she turned around, he looked at her as if he was studying her, his gaze frank, finally coming to some long-recognized decision.

“Thank you again. Not just for the roses—for everything.”

This time, his smile was a little more familiar – something a little more tender, closer to the smile she always thought of as _hers_ —the one she’d seen standing on her porch or across her desk. It stung to know that she wouldn’t see that smile again, even if things went well between them, but that didn’t mean that the feelings that replaced it couldn’t still be something good.

This time, when Rebecca walked away, she made sure not to look back until after she heard the snick of the door closing.

It was time for them to try something new.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this image of Rebecca bringing yellow roses to Nathaniel since last year. Happy to finally put it somewhere!


End file.
